In a semiconductor manufacturing process, a lithography technique is generally performed to form a desired pattern on a base material. Higher degree of microprocessing has also been achieved by a lithography technique using a short-wavelength laser or an electron beam.
However, the lithography technique performs a multiple number of processes such as pattern transfer, exposure and development. Further, it is expensive to obtain the short-wavelength laser such as ultraviolet (UV) and carry out maintenance thereof. Besides, an apparatus using the short-wavelength laser becomes scaled up and exposure time becomes longer. As a result, a high manufacturing cost is caused.
Meanwhile, it has been also proposed forming a desired pattern on a base material by an imprinting method (see, for example, Patent Documents 1 and 2). This method performs a smaller number of processes as compared to the lithography technique. Further, since there is no need for laser and pattern formation can be performed in the atmosphere, the configuration of the apparatus can be simplified. Thus, the imprinting method has an advantage over the lithography technique in the aspect of price and maintenance.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2009-060084    Patent Document 2: Pamphlet of International Publication No. 2004/114381
In the imprinting method, however, it takes much time to separate a molding material from a target material. This is because the molding material is not easily separated from the target material when lifting up the molding material after a pattern having protrusion and recess on the molding material is transferred to the target material by firmly pressing the molding material against the target material and the target material is then cured. As a result, only four sheets of wafers can be processed for an hour in the present situation. Thus, the throughput of the imprinting method is very poor.